[wood] an URSULINE EPIC SB 



how many of them were active as " the devil's missionaries " in the 

 brandy trade among tjhe Indians. 



An education at the Urs.ulines' offered the aclcnowledged corrective 

 to social excesses and the best preparation for the future mothers of ,the 

 colony. Civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries were always willing to lend 

 their countenance to such a scbool fête as the one recorded in the annals 

 for the 23rd. of August, 1752. Geneviève de Boucherville, now neariug 

 her eightieth year, receives the distinguished guests with all the grace 

 of the salon without any of its empty compliments. Duquesne, the last 

 great Governor, and the Bishop and Intendant, with their suites, are 

 there, surrounded by everyone whom the society papers would have men- 

 tioned next day, had there been any papers then. At the end of the 

 reception room is a grove, from which the nymphs and shepherdesses 

 issue in procession to greet the Governor-General with ai triumphal ode, 

 comparing his servi|ces for the king in Canada to those performed by 

 his ancestors for the kings in France. There was no lack of poetastic 

 incense; but Duquesne had won the right of patriotic homage, as had 

 the bishop, who was addressed next. This good prelate's visitations into 

 the further wilderness were duly chronicled in glowing verse. " All 

 Olympus' faded hierarchy" was pressed into unwonted fellowship when- 

 ever the occasion seemed to warrant it, and some very quaint "conceits" 

 were the result. When the Quebec Ursulines heard what yeoman service 

 the bishop had done after their Three Elvers sisters were burnt out they 

 gave him a place among the gods of Grieece, quite in the effusive spirit 

 of the fashionable pastorals of the day. The translation made for a later 

 generation of English-speaking pupils is even quainter than the original. 



Among the goda, if po^s' lays are true. 

 Deeds most surprising were not rare to view ; 

 And all Olympus did the feat admire, 

 AMien bright Apollo cast aside his lyre. 

 Forbore to sing and seized the heavy spade. 

 Or with the mason's trowel mortar laid. 

 Like him. my Lord, you put the apron on, 

 And soften hearts, while you are laying stone. 



But very different days were coming; days when the heart of New 

 î'rance was failing it for fear; when the land was eaten up with cor- 

 ruption and gaunt with famine. 



Before the middle of the century there came a new Intendant, a 

 man at once so consunmiate and so outrageous in all dishonesty that even 

 the last hundred and fifty years of public life in the United States and 



